Motor vehicles, such as automobiles, may include airbags designed to be inflated and to be impacted by occupants during a side or frontal oblique impact of the vehicle. For example, a side air curtain may deploy downwardly from a roof rail alongside windows during a side collision, and the side air curtain may be impacted by an occupant adjacent to the side air curtain.
Vehicles may be subject to impact testing standards for the curtain airbags. As one example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) provides a test procedure designed to simulate a vehicle experiencing a side collision with a pole. The NHTSA procedure provides that a test vehicle holding a test dummy as an occupant collides sideways at 20 miles per hour into a rigid vertical pole 10 inches in diameter. As another example, NHTSA provides a test procedure to measure “ejection,” that is, an occupant intruding through a window opening. The NHTSA procedure provides measuring head excursion at four locations after side impacts of the vehicle at 9.9 and 12.4 kilometers per hour.